When it comes to precision, nothing is more important than when the doctor has the scalpel in his hand, ready to operate on his patient. Surgery is the time when no mistakes can me made, for there are precious lives at stake if the slightest slip occurs. This is why doctors go to school seemingly forever — so they can perfect their craft and actually know what they are doing when they get into that operating room.

This ain’t biology class, however.

The mindset, craft and skill that surgeons use on an almost daily basis is the same thing that you and I must have when doing the hustle (no, not the dance). Being “surgical” is so profound that it found its way into the lines recited by Denzel Washington in Training Day. Lately I have really been thinking about this in my daily grind, and it has helped immensely because I plan out things way in advance instead of waiting for the last possible moment, a.k.a. procrastination:

The money needed to be spent for the upcoming week.

The routes I take to get to the places I want to go.

The posts I do for this website.

The goals I have for the current year.

In doing this, it has truly maximized the amount of money I’ve saved, and also the amount I’m able to earn. For instance, holding yourself to a budget will allow you to almost predict with precision how much money you will have for bills, household expenses, fun, etc., instead of being surprised that the ATM will not give you any money when you stick your card in. You no longer live paycheck to paycheck because you know what you can and can’t afford, and you find that this “new lifestyle” offers you the ability to afford many of the things you want, and conversely, you find that you won’t want many of the things you previously did!

Huh?!

Yes, you will find that once you have the capacity to buy something or do something, it’s not as appealing as it once was, especially if it is a frivolous decision or purchase. It’s kinda like going to the grocery store when you’re not hungry: you tend to stick to your list more (your established goals) versus making impulse purchases (being frivolous, undisciplined). These lessons are not new, they have been all around us for quite some time now, but the only way they truly sink in is when you finally get tired of living life the way you have been, or when you tell your mind that it is time to do something different.

But that’s not enough.

Once you make this decision, you have to continuously tell yourself that this “new lifestyle” is really what you want, because you will have the tendency to fall back on what you know, what is familiar, what you have been doing for so long. This is a fancy way of saying you have to develop new habits that will lead you to the place that you want to go. Da Hustler did this over the past few months with the electricity bill. Tired of seeing the high energy usage and consequently, the higher bills, I decided to do something about it. Beginning in January, I decided to switch off the things I wasn’t using at the fuse box. All the rooms or items that weren’t in use, I decided to stop paying for the convenience of having them ready at all times. I also started checking my electricity meter everyday, one to be sure that the power company wasn’t getting over on me, and two to monitor my own usage. One would think that if the power company isn’t getting over, why monitor the usage? Well, once you know the average amount of energy you use in a day, you have a better chance of lowering your usage through conservation.

In addition to monitoring everything, I also looked at my past usage over the past six years and noticed the trends: more energy used during the winter (heating) and summer (cooling) months. Now because of where I live, this trend will not likely cease just because I have changed my habits, because humans want to be warmer when it is cooler and vice versa. I will still use more during these times than in the spring and fall, but I will use considerably less than I have ever used. And as the saying goes, less is more.

This is just one example of how you can be surgical, but I’ve noticed that once you start, you will want to do more, deciding that it’s not cool to give away money, but rather cool to make your money work for you. Cut your bills by any percentage, and place that money in a high-yield interest-bearing account such as ING (in fact, send me an e-mail, and I’ll send you a link to get you an extra $25 in your account when you deposit $250!).

Be surgical. Keep your money. Don’t allow decisions to be made for you. Make a better life for yourself. And to borrow yet again from Training Day: “The [ish] is chess, not checkers!”